Social Network

Social Network from David Fincher is probably the most eye-catching movie this year. After the Inception wave among film bugs, this biography film of Mark Zukerburg, the guy who established famous network website Facebook, is certainly worth commenting for those eager film critics.

This film is rather different from David Fincher's previous ones both in style and story. His former films, like Aliens3, Fight Club, Se7en, Zodiac, Panic Room...are quite...cool - both in the sense of watching experiences and psychological tempreture as well.

Sex is the first motivation why Mark would set up Facebook. After being dumped by his girlfriend, it was anger inside him drove him to start a website comparing girls among male students in Harvard. And that is the start of the whole Facebook idea.

Is Mark Zukerburg an ASSHOLE?

A lawyer in the film said to Mark: "You are not really an asshole, you only tries to be one." Definitely it would cost something to succeed and in this network empire, it was friendship.

Mark abandoned his best friend - who also served as a co-founder of Facebook in the company, and later his business partner. As said by himself: "You don't get to 500,000,000 friends without making a few enemies."

Well, the question is meaningless now. Who cares? He is the youngest billionaire on this planet!

As Mark tries to add his ex on Facebook at the very end of the film, I laughed and cannot help thinking another thing. Do you guys also think Mark should spare some of his shareholder of the company to the girl? After all, she is the reason why this genius bursted out all of a sudden.

Oh, by the way, Mark's new girlfriend, that chinese american girl, does not really fit normal people's understanding towards adjectives like "pretty", "beautiful" or "gorgeous", right??

J'ai tué ma mère!

Ma mere, a toi je me confie
Des ecueils d'un monde trompeur
Ecarte ma faible nacelle
Je veux devoir tout mon bonheur
A la tendresse maternelle...

This is a poem given by his literature teacher when our handsome hero was about to be sent to a boarding school. As a good friend, the teacher, Julie, tried to make things work better between the boy and his mom.

Yet he wrote <<J'ai tué ma mère>>. 

Facing a camera alone, Hubert would say: I loved her, if someone hurts her, I would kill him. But at the same time I could name 80 people whom I love more. 

Adolescent rebellion. That is it.

This reminds me alot about my own cousin and his mother.

When my cousin was at Hubert's age, things were almost the same. He skipped classes, ran away from home and was a drug user as well. My aunt could do nothing but screaming at him.

Things get better when he was sent to a university in Russia. People there are apparently tougher and... well... one has to take good care of himself. One year later, when my cousin returned from that icy country, everything changed.

He hugged his parents at the airport - I guess he must miss them terribly in the past year. He even cooked for them. They live happily ever after.  XD

J'ai tué ma mère is directed, acted, written and produced by Xavier Dolan. The guy is even younger than me. And the film won him the best artistic film in Cannes last year. He is described as a new film genius by film critics.

He is brilliant, yet selfish. And he knows it.

I gave the film four stars this morning. Not only because of Xavier's handsome face, perfect talent in cinematography design, amazing beauty of colours in his film, but also the fact that this is rather a true story which started bitter yet ended happy.

Em, I just love this. Although you may say it is a cliche.

La Dolce Vita

When Yoann proposed that we could watch a film by Fellini together to release ourselves from last "boring" weekend, I thought, well, vow~ You gonna regret for this. Yet I said "yes" out of my love for him.

Em. And it turned out that I was wrong. The movie is fabulous. La Dolce Vita from Fellini. I loved it. Cynical Fellini depicts a typical upper-class life in 60s' Roma with handsome Marcello Mastroianni as a journalist this time. Many reviews even comment this film as the most beautiful movies in the world. 

Yes, indeed, with so many dances and soothing music in, no one would neglect its nature beauty. Not mentioning about its excellent casting like Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg. 

Marcello tried to become a serious writer yet actually he lived in a rather chaos atomosphere with a nagging and too-much- maternal-love fiancee Emma and of course a bunch of crazy Italian paparazzis. He is seduced by pretty women and upper-class balls everyday. And I think somehow he enjoyed this, before he met Steiner. He thought Steiner is an model, Steiner is successful with a loving wife and two angel-like children. Marcello looks upon to him...

Yet the story turned out to be a tragedy: Steiner killed his children and committed suicide afterwards. All things in front of Marcello just fleed away.

La dolce vita! It made me think.

On The Banishment: Shots as a Powerful Film Language

Andrey Zvyagintsev has utilized vast number of methods to make his film completed and symmetrical as a circle and the goal is reached through focus of filming skills, fair background music and delicate designed details. The composition of each frame is flawless with a pleasing balance of colors and shapes; the original sound tracks in the film are perfectly matched with the story itself and those fine details add more elements and tips worth studying at. With the magic power of film languages, the director is capable of expressing his original idea better and stronger and has also managed to show us marvelous Russian countryside scenery.

Just like Bazin argued that films should be depicting what be seen as "objective reality" and advocated "true continuity" and preferred by many Russian film masters, Zvyagintsev has utilized a vast number of objective tracking shots in his own film. In an important sense, only if a director is fairly confident about the actors, the mis-en-scene and his cinematographer would he prefer to use this kind of shooting method. Iindisputable, Zvyagintsev is confident, especially after the Golden Lion awarded by the Venice Film Festival for his maiden work The Return in the year of 2003. His second film ---- The Banishment (Russian: Изгнание, Izgnanie) (2007) is a loose adaptation of a novel: The Laughing Matter, by the Armenian-American writer William Saroyan. Stylistically, the film draws on both the expressionist and the “silent, oppressive and philosophical” traditions of Russian films. The film represented as an impartial record of a turmoil relationship between the couple ---- Vera and Alex and its ultimate collapse due to the estrangement and mutual distrust.

Tracking shots in The Banishment are prevalently used. Since most of the movements happen indoor, track shots following the actors are of pivotal importance. Take one tracking shot of the couple’s little daughter Eva as an example, when she was brought to a brand new house the tiny creature showed tremendous interest about everything around her. The shot followed her, witnessed the scene she went up to her room and her chosen of a “more ideal” bed. Watching her deeds in the small room like patting on her bed, meditating by the window and blowing on the dust on them makes the audiences feel peaceful at that moment. The whole family is new to this village ---- the hometown of Alex who stayed away for 12 years which suggests somehow that their arrival would definitely wake up those dusted memories and make some stirs. The silence and peace of the village has got an enormous storage for anything: thrilling, sad or harmonic. Another impressive tracking shot is when the husband invited his wife to go for a walk in woods nearby to talk about the so-called “adultery” thing. The dialogue did not go smoothly while the camera focused on the wife’s face: her happiness after the husband expressed his willingness to start all over again and the sudden sadness and desperation when she was told to get rid of the baby. The husband went out of the camera for a deliberately made space for Vera in a noticeable seconds which may make the audiences feel free and happy for Vera having sometime to think about the whole lie-thing while this relief was broken soon by the re-entering of the husband which continued to give or even dense the pressure on his wife, the subtle violence and manipulation of the husband revealed clearly.   

Symmetrical/coordinated tracking long shots are utilized as a powerful way of depicting changes of time in this film although they are usually acclaimed for their effects in completing the film structure and the aesthetic values. Here are three examples: Mark (Alex’s brother) turned to Alex for medical help at the beginning of the film, driving all the way from countryside to town while Alex drove the exact same way to track his imaginary enemy Robert down later after Vera’s death, passing the identical oak tree (this typical Russian film set kept reminding me of Tarkovsky and Angelopoulos’s films). Alex removed all the wood blocks to the windows when they first arrived at the house while the doctor (who was in charge of Mark’s funeral) shut them all down before he left the house. With these identical long shots ---- which were all placed inside the room, the director could emphasize the changes of lights in a more apparent way. Last pair of symmetrical shots is that (1)Kir (their son) asked about the dried spring in front of their house and (2)the longest shot in the film ---- rain started to fall after everything was back to silence in the autumn. The latter shot tracked the raindrops till them get together into a stream down on the ground, wiggling all the way through the house and reach at the spring. This shot is more like a metaphoric miracle, a baptizing ceremony for the sins and wrongdoings and a new start of love and life. This tracking shot may offer us imaginations and wonders along with a sense of final relief from Vera’s death.

Another typical usage of tracking shots is the ones that track in from a long shot to a medium close-up. This kind of shots in the film is intense and the power and energy it released are gigantic. This time in a domestic scene after Vera committed a suicide vividly underlined the condensed ambience of the film. The scene opens with a medium long-shot that gradually tracks in through a doorway. The shot is rigidly balanced as the frame of the doorway lines up perfectly with the sides of the film frame and the bathroom open-door is in the gradually opening center of the frame. A shiver of coldness arose through my spin when the shot closed in on Vera’s strength-less body in it. The camera stops at this point, with the deep, sad background music, this scene brings not only a condensed ambience, a feel of pressure/curiosity/fear but also a bunch of questions: What courage would this woman take to make the decision to commit a suicide, leaving a beloved husband and a couple of children? How much disappointments have she born for these years? All these questions could be explained by what happened later and the depressed shot plays a pivotal role in making up the fearsome atmosphere which showed a calling for love and care from a desperate wife.

While the mass utilization of tracking shots enforced the atmosphere for the film, some other shots which were full of specific details have provided more clues for audiences to analyze and to learn the couple’s attitude toward their children ---- the riff between the couple grows but the two try to keep up appearances in the presence of their children. Like those shots on the train to express the covered love between the families though the close-up of Vera’s face did bring in some disturbance. The struggling mind state of Alex when he was driving after he was told he was not the father. That single shot from his back showed his fear, anger and reluctance simultaneously. When Alex drove together with his son and got to know that Robert may be the man, the medium shot occurred with a facial-expression of resentment and a firm will to revenge on Robert revealed. Close-up shots in the film served a practical effect too. First one, after a talk between Alex and Vera in which Vera argued: I know what Kir is going to be…Just like your father and you brothers…The shot then jumped to a photo frame on the wall in which were a single close-up picture of Alex’s father ---- an old dark man and a larger one of Alex and Mark standing in front of the house. This is a side hint for the hidden lines, with another clue which was shown at the start of the film that Mark was shot in arm; audiences could conclude easily that there is the subtle but definite indication of a mysterious and possibly criminal past in the family. Another one is also about photo, a photo shown to Robert while Vera murmuring: “I don’t want to be alone…Why he stopped talking to me?” after she was rescued, in which Vera’s bright and smiling face before she married was showed. This close-up illustrated well about the ice-cold relationship between the couple, with the acknowledgement of another related clue that Vera has never showed her smile like this in the whole film, we gradually get to know and understand Vera’s sorrow and desperation. Male bonding pervades in this family and women’s role in it is just like some birth machines. Vera loves Alex, however, love without returns turns to be the most difficult one to pursue. When the children were sent to friends’ house, Frida read the very famous paragraph from the Bible about love: Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. The close-up of Frida’s silhouette in a dim light allows only one word to describe her ---- seraph. Zvyagintsev made a girl speak out the definition of love in the Bible to remind us to bear, to believe, to hope and to endure. Love and relationship are the main theme of the film and the use of suitable cinematography skills enforced them. Without as many lines as Hollywood blockbusters usually have, images in this film mean everything.

Only three top shots were used in the whole film, which indeed is a small number. These chosen shots have got substantial and metaphoric meanings along with their delicate and perfect composition. When examined from this point of view, they all serve as hints of the story clue. The most pleasant one is that when all the children were gathered on the carpet and tried to finish a puzzle of St. Mother Maria while Alex prepared to get his wife aborted. The scene first started with a tracking shot moving steadily from the dark doorway where Alex talked to his friend on the phone to keep his children their’s for the night because of the undergoing abortion plan, the shot was set at the level of a child’s height and move to a medium living-room view where had got abundant of light and joy. The tracking shot is a prefiguration of dark and “filthy” plan of adults, the dark telephone-dialogue and the bright game scene contract sharply to indicate the hidden secret and the destination of Vera’s. The top shot appears then, above of the carpet, showing a warm, clear and bright picture of children. Top shot can be seen as an angle from the heaven. Children represented innocence and hope and St. Mother Maria’s portrait added some more religion meanings here. St. Mother is there to watch, to bless and to mercy. All the fear, distrusts, estrangement are wrong. Contrary thoughts mean utterly alternatives in life. A second top shot is the scene when a postman sent Vera her pregnancy test result from the hospital. This is a turning-point of Vera’s life which made her more reluctant of giving up her life and ended up with the decision of testing her husband’s love. The story actually begins here, she started to reconsider the relationship, think about the future of her kids and whether the love she offered to him means anything. Those mess thoughts have eventually pushed her into a dilemma of “to be or not to be”. Love is to sacrifice. The moment she knew that her love was banished by Alex, she made a final decision, and only with her departure would Alex understand the intact true virtue of love. Alex never listens. After times and times of communication failures, she just gave up and she had to. The third top shot coordinates with the previous one closely ---- an old worker is digging, for Vera’s coffin, which represented the end point of Vera’s tragedy life.

Mirror-shots are as important too. They have always been taken as a kind of supplements to the story and the composition of images. What impressed me most in the Banishment is that Zvyagintsev has created a brand-new transition method with the help of mirror-shot. Other methods like the use of sounds, music and cut, etc. have been considered as traditional ways of transition while Zvyagintsev used “time” itself and the mirror-shot to finish the transition task. When Alex appeared in the mirror of the doorway answering a phone after Vera sent Robert away the same place in the same scene, the transition has finished, perfectly clear and refreshing as well. This delicate shot could be counted as one of the most excellent part of its cinematographic designs.

In my point of view, The Banishment is a fair work, apart from its cinematographic beauty; there are still more sparkle points worth our attention, like resourceful metaphors and perfectly handled atmosphere. Besides, details like the friendship between Kir and Flora would definitely contribute much to the feel of warmth which offers hope instead of being over-cruel all the time, especially to women audiences. What could be more romantic than a girl phoning her lonely friend to play a piece of music for him? The picture of Flora holding a phone above of a phonograph is so dear and sweet. When a kitty lying under your feet and playing with the curtain, would not your heart feel like melting? Spectacular Russian rural scenery and perfect utilization of camera languages offer us a feast of eyes and this also makes sense when coming to the matter of whether Andrey Zvyagintsev should be evaluated as a promising film director.  

An Education

It has been a long time since the first time i watched the film The Education. Felt bored yesterday evening after a legislation analysis assignment almost killed me, I checked the film list I could get access to, then I found The Education among them. Actually this is abnormal - due to the high demand of my greedy appetite for new films and the limitation of my digital storage space, what i usually do afterwards is to press Ctrl+Delete to get rid of the watched films. Well, I said. God helped you stay. Let's find out the reason now.

Every girl has got a White Knight in her mind, not only because of all those pretty and lovely princess and prince fairytales told by her parents when she was little impressed her, but also the nature of girls' tenderness and desires of sweet love. Thus, Jenny is lucky. Really. She had met a gentleman who taught her about the life she has been longing for, the love she has dreamt of... And he had even taken her to Paris. He showed her around the adults' world.

I insist that the man loved her, though someone had argued with me about this for a really long session. He loved her so he tried to make her laugh, bought dozens of gifts for her birthday and proposed in a touching way...(My heart melted when he kneed down on the ground as well) And! He got jealous when he found out that his friend liked her! He is charming. Apperantly he is far more attractive compared to a dull and unsophisticated adolescent boyfriend. Not mentioning when Jenny was only 16 and has got a really annoying dad at home. Oxford, yes, it is marvelous and GLORIOUS with its red bricks and so what??? Oxford to Jenny is just like a posh Bristol to her dad, and that is the reason why she has been pushed so hard. Jenny's parents even have lost themselves in that fashion Jewish man - no one could dare to point at Jenny, saying that she was seduced by posh cars, posh bars, posh concerts and posh trips.

Jenny is different with Helen, who only knows Chelsea and "english books". Trop cher pour moi... and I am going to Oxford to read English. Helen helped Jenny change into a real woman. Helen taught Jenny how to dress like a lady instead of a child. Helen made "Carey Mulligan" look like Audrey Hepburn and herself Catherine Deneuve.Helen is a belle. It is a shame that she do not speak french or she could win Danny more.

Carey Mulligan played well. And I do like her smile, and her mini delicate scapula. Really attractive. :)